Oh, Very Young

For the past couple of days, there has been roving packs of young teenage girls hanging out in the general vicinity of my office, with the epicenter of their attention a half block or so down. They gab on their cell phones, giggle, plot and some of them are dressed in various stages of feline attire.

They are fans of a boy band whose name I'm thinking better of mentioning here, lest I incur the wrath of  hyped up girls trolling in the interwebs for any mention of their fave group at 3a.m. I'll just say that they seem to be a bunch of lads determined not to Change Course or, like, Go The Other Way. In any case, I, in my advanced matron age of 33 years on this earth, was blissfully unaware of  this band until seeing their arrival at the Sydney airport on the news, while I was waving my cane at some wippersnapper from the treadmill at the gym.

So these girls ... From my office, sometimes I can hear them singing in a hormonal chorus. This afternoon, while picnicking at lunch, I heard bursts of screaming - but it sounded oddly controlled, and not at all hysterical - as if they were having a rehearsal for the real thing. They are determinedly unaware of the regular office workers and tourists walking by, as they are rapt with a sense of attention that might signal that being there was their job - nay, their solemn duty.

This group's arrival in Sydney is perfectly aligned with school holidays, so these girls have nowhere else to be, and seem to have committed themselves with a fervor their parents may wish they might find for their homework, on occasion.

Part of me understands. My friends and I loved New Kids on the Block (Jordan, if you really want to know), I had walls full of posters, and I must have done some high decibel screaming at their concert at the now-demolished Omni in Atlanta. I can't say that it would have occurred to me to camp out in front of their hotel, though. But, hell, had there been the Internet to tell me where they were staying and the availability of decent public transport, who knows what my hormonal, obsessive little self would have done.

From what I've seen, these girls look well enough behaved (though I'd not like to be in the path should one of the boyz emerge), and they're not in my way, so they've not been an annoyance, so much as a curiosity. Why do girls need to form packs and adore wholly unatainable boys? Why is there no male equivalent of this behavior? What are they emotionally getting out of sitting in front of this hotel?

It's all a mystery for the ages, and I'm sure someone's written a thesis on it. I'll keep studying their rituals for as long as they camp, but from the safety of my office and the distance of a couple of decades between me and that sort of behavior.

P.S. - I thought of snapping some photos, but it seemed decidedly creeper-y for a grown person to be sneaking pictures of teenage girls on a cell phone camera, even if they have set themselves up as a spectacle.